From You
Mar 19, 2003
Letters
SADDAM WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD
A friend of mine was over the other day delivering some Persian rugs that I had purchased, and he had been to Iran and the surrounding areas buying rugs. He had dealt with the Arab world in the rug business and said that dealing with them was often difficult, but he came out okay. He said that the Iraqi rug merchants would hold out to the last minute, haggling about the price and arguing and seeming to be irrevocably stuck to the price, but in the end they always came through and made an acceptable deal. The thought occurred to my friend and to me that maybe Saddam is acting like an Iraqi rug merchant, and that the final conclusion will be that he will submit and work out an agreement and there won't be any conflict. Let's hope that this assessment is correct, and that he is bargaining like an Iraqi rug merchant and will in the end come through with the American demands. Let's see what happens.
Morgan R. Redwine, Jr.
Athens
PAINTBALL AT THE BOT
Accolades for the Georgia Botanical Garden joining the brave ranks of public institutions to push the frontiers of non-discrimination. In a small but meaningful gesture of good will extended to a largely unknown minority group among us, the Garden has designated an underused and certainly unappreciated hillside of mature hardwood forest as the University of Georgia Paintball Field. The "Field" designation is curious, as the slope is presently tree cluttered, but the forest lends plenty of tree-fall and lime detritus for the numerous battle breastworks in the making. Beneath the high arching limbs of hickory and oak, paintballers can freely sally forth against the ranks of their game-time enemies - "zap and splat" guns ablazin'. Corroding barbed wire criss-crossing the slope behind could be conscripted for duty alongside the deep erosional trenches inherited from excessive slope farming in days of yore. A few smoke bombs in the mix, and we'd have our own faux WWI battlefield.
And since it's indisputable that everything has indeed changed (if change is the word you wish to use) since 9/11™ why not encourage some martial spunk among our media stupefied student body. Battle honed skills are handy in an age of terror such as ours. But why stop with old-world notions of landscape warfare? Think of the fun to be had on north campus. Urban paintball would add a modern (postmodern?) dimension to the game and generate some needed publicity for the school. Hell! Those yawnfest north campus tours for prospective students could be transformed into a rollicking test of studhood. College Ave? Oh my God!
Okay. Maybe I've overlooked the genius of the move. The Botanical Garden has been waging a long campaign against the growing hoards of white tail deer. I would imagine that paintball impassioned hoots 'n' hollers would encourage these ungulates to seek more hospitable grounds. Any suggestions on where they might go? The Greenway? Pardon me, but I have to wonder if those shock-colored running shorts bouncing through the trees on the hips of well-toned cross-country runners make tempting targets. Hmm.
Anyhow, with a diversifying woodland soundscape the Garden has a clear opportunity to generate some revenue from those ungrateful poets and naturalists who've been taking free solace and inspiration from one of the only "more wild than not" places left in the county. Would they not have need for a player and headphone set to enjoy a Sounds of the Southern Woods CD? (Five dollars suggested donation.) With the sonic approximation of the woodlands restored, what complaint could they justifiably tender as long as they avoid the Environmental Test Site or the old University dump?
Since my last excursion into the Botanical Garden woods, I've begun a new collection of paintball "berries," arranging them beside my older bone and seed collections. In the woods you can't miss them. In shape and texture they resemble muscadines - just as thick-skinned and juicy, but weird as if they were genetically scrambled grapes showing colors I'm not sure I've seen before. I wonder what raccoons think of the flavor.
Would you mind terribly if I brought my German shepherds to the next Botanical Garden Paintball shootout? They love a good chase and for the players I would imagine they'd bring an exciting new element to the game.
S. Seurry
Athens
A COMMENDATION
I wish to commend Brad Aaron for his article "Landlords Lash Out Against Potential Regulation" [Mar. 5] because he obtained the facts of the situation before publishing.
Beverly King
Athens
DROP IN THE BUCKET
One point Flagpole needed to make in the school choice story ["School Choice Called Into Question," Feb. 26] is that choice used to include middle schools, but now affects only the elementary schools in Clarke County. Parents who make the decision to send their children to an elementary school outside of their neighborhood may end up sending those kids to a middle school none of their friends can attend.
Flagpole rarely addresses the public school system in Clarke County, and I was glad to see this article. Perhaps those of us who read Flagpole and have children are in a minority of your readers. But it should come as no surprise to anyone in Clarke County that the school board has failed through the years to adequately address the concerns of parents of elementary school age children. This lack of concern, and more importantly, lack of action has resulted in students unprepared for middle or high school, culminating in a high drop out rate in a county which should be an example of stellar public school education for the state, if not the country. Sure, there's REACTION now, we have school councils and curriculum audits, and even a "non-punitive alternative high school" in the works. Lots of reports will be generated. UGA claims to be riding in as a knight in shining armor with the education theory of the day (they roll those out like soup du jour, and have Clarke County children as built-in guinea pigs). This is all well and good, but the main focus of the school board needs to be at the elementary school level in the classrooms, so that children receive the proper foundation from the start. How many problems in middle and high school could be solved or avoided entirely if the children arrived there properly prepared? How many problems could be solved or avoided entirely if discipline issues were properly addressed and parents held accountable for their children's behavior? How many problems could be solved or avoided entirely if Clarke County teachers weren't afraid to speak up for fear of losing their jobs?
My son is now in middle school in Clarke County. The products of at least three Clarke County elementary schools are there with him. Many are great kids. Many are rude to teachers and fellow students alike (to say the least), and certainly not interested in appropriate participation. Some fight, some steal, some bully. Racial prejudice is evident among a significant number. Typical pre-teen behavior? No, this is more, and none of them learned this behavior overnight. Much of it could have been stopped well before they reached middle school. These kids do exactly what they know they can get away with, and that's a lot.
The state has released the school report cards for 2001-02. Clarke County's performance is not impressive. School choice is just a drop in the bucket.
Vicki Hirsch-White
Athens
IN VOGUE
Flagpole has sunk to a new low with the publication of the letters from Ms. Posner's 4th grade class [Letters, Mar. 5]. I thought that the letter to the editor page was a place for (somewhat) reasoned discourse concerning topics which are presented in the magazine. None of the 22 letters were addressed to the Flagpole, nor were any of them in direct response to something which had been written in the Flagpole. Why were they printed? Did any of these children ask that their letters be printed in the Flagpole? Had any of them even heard of the magazine before these were sent?
Ms. Posner's role in this should certainly be questioned. Were her students clamoring to express their opinions to the President so strongly that she had no choice but to send them to the White House, or was this a class project that she came up with on her own? If the latter is the case, what did she hope to achieve with such a project? Were these all the letters, or just a selection, and whose selection?
21 of the 22 letters all expressed essentially the same thing: War is bad and we shouldn't have one. Since the general public is divided roughly 50-50 on the subject of war with Iraq, and since most kids this age get a majority of their opinions from what their parents tell them, it would seem that they might have been coached on what to write, considering the overwhelming majority of the letters were on one side of the debate. One would think that the Flagpole, which upholds the idea that people should be allowed to think for themselves, would be suspicious of what seems, on the surface, to be an attempt to manipulate the thoughts of a group of children.
My daughter is in 5th grade, and she hasn't written anything so rambling and full of spelling and grammatical mistakes as most of these letters since she was in the 2nd grade. I understand that "creative spelling" is in vogue right now, but at some point students need to be shown how to write correctly or they will be at a disadvantage in middle and high school. If Ms. Posner would spend more classroom time teaching spelling and grammar and less time imposing her personal political positions, she might end up with the better world she wants, filled with people who can confidently and accurately express their own opinions.
The next time you want to make a statement, Ms. Posner, write your own letter. Don't get your students to write it for you.
Philip Weinrich
Bogart
Editor's note: Flagpole, like most other local and regional periodicals, welcomes letters on any subject.
A friend of mine was over the other day delivering some Persian rugs that I had purchased, and he had been to Iran and the surrounding areas buying rugs. He had dealt with the Arab world in the rug business and said that dealing with them was often difficult, but he came out okay. He said that the Iraqi rug merchants would hold out to the last minute, haggling about the price and arguing and seeming to be irrevocably stuck to the price, but in the end they always came through and made an acceptable deal. The thought occurred to my friend and to me that maybe Saddam is acting like an Iraqi rug merchant, and that the final conclusion will be that he will submit and work out an agreement and there won't be any conflict. Let's hope that this assessment is correct, and that he is bargaining like an Iraqi rug merchant and will in the end come through with the American demands. Let's see what happens.
Morgan R. Redwine, Jr.
Athens
PAINTBALL AT THE BOT
Accolades for the Georgia Botanical Garden joining the brave ranks of public institutions to push the frontiers of non-discrimination. In a small but meaningful gesture of good will extended to a largely unknown minority group among us, the Garden has designated an underused and certainly unappreciated hillside of mature hardwood forest as the University of Georgia Paintball Field. The "Field" designation is curious, as the slope is presently tree cluttered, but the forest lends plenty of tree-fall and lime detritus for the numerous battle breastworks in the making. Beneath the high arching limbs of hickory and oak, paintballers can freely sally forth against the ranks of their game-time enemies - "zap and splat" guns ablazin'. Corroding barbed wire criss-crossing the slope behind could be conscripted for duty alongside the deep erosional trenches inherited from excessive slope farming in days of yore. A few smoke bombs in the mix, and we'd have our own faux WWI battlefield.
And since it's indisputable that everything has indeed changed (if change is the word you wish to use) since 9/11™ why not encourage some martial spunk among our media stupefied student body. Battle honed skills are handy in an age of terror such as ours. But why stop with old-world notions of landscape warfare? Think of the fun to be had on north campus. Urban paintball would add a modern (postmodern?) dimension to the game and generate some needed publicity for the school. Hell! Those yawnfest north campus tours for prospective students could be transformed into a rollicking test of studhood. College Ave? Oh my God!
Okay. Maybe I've overlooked the genius of the move. The Botanical Garden has been waging a long campaign against the growing hoards of white tail deer. I would imagine that paintball impassioned hoots 'n' hollers would encourage these ungulates to seek more hospitable grounds. Any suggestions on where they might go? The Greenway? Pardon me, but I have to wonder if those shock-colored running shorts bouncing through the trees on the hips of well-toned cross-country runners make tempting targets. Hmm.
Anyhow, with a diversifying woodland soundscape the Garden has a clear opportunity to generate some revenue from those ungrateful poets and naturalists who've been taking free solace and inspiration from one of the only "more wild than not" places left in the county. Would they not have need for a player and headphone set to enjoy a Sounds of the Southern Woods CD? (Five dollars suggested donation.) With the sonic approximation of the woodlands restored, what complaint could they justifiably tender as long as they avoid the Environmental Test Site or the old University dump?
Since my last excursion into the Botanical Garden woods, I've begun a new collection of paintball "berries," arranging them beside my older bone and seed collections. In the woods you can't miss them. In shape and texture they resemble muscadines - just as thick-skinned and juicy, but weird as if they were genetically scrambled grapes showing colors I'm not sure I've seen before. I wonder what raccoons think of the flavor.
Would you mind terribly if I brought my German shepherds to the next Botanical Garden Paintball shootout? They love a good chase and for the players I would imagine they'd bring an exciting new element to the game.
S. Seurry
Athens
A COMMENDATION
I wish to commend Brad Aaron for his article "Landlords Lash Out Against Potential Regulation" [Mar. 5] because he obtained the facts of the situation before publishing.
Beverly King
Athens
DROP IN THE BUCKET
One point Flagpole needed to make in the school choice story ["School Choice Called Into Question," Feb. 26] is that choice used to include middle schools, but now affects only the elementary schools in Clarke County. Parents who make the decision to send their children to an elementary school outside of their neighborhood may end up sending those kids to a middle school none of their friends can attend.
Flagpole rarely addresses the public school system in Clarke County, and I was glad to see this article. Perhaps those of us who read Flagpole and have children are in a minority of your readers. But it should come as no surprise to anyone in Clarke County that the school board has failed through the years to adequately address the concerns of parents of elementary school age children. This lack of concern, and more importantly, lack of action has resulted in students unprepared for middle or high school, culminating in a high drop out rate in a county which should be an example of stellar public school education for the state, if not the country. Sure, there's REACTION now, we have school councils and curriculum audits, and even a "non-punitive alternative high school" in the works. Lots of reports will be generated. UGA claims to be riding in as a knight in shining armor with the education theory of the day (they roll those out like soup du jour, and have Clarke County children as built-in guinea pigs). This is all well and good, but the main focus of the school board needs to be at the elementary school level in the classrooms, so that children receive the proper foundation from the start. How many problems in middle and high school could be solved or avoided entirely if the children arrived there properly prepared? How many problems could be solved or avoided entirely if discipline issues were properly addressed and parents held accountable for their children's behavior? How many problems could be solved or avoided entirely if Clarke County teachers weren't afraid to speak up for fear of losing their jobs?
My son is now in middle school in Clarke County. The products of at least three Clarke County elementary schools are there with him. Many are great kids. Many are rude to teachers and fellow students alike (to say the least), and certainly not interested in appropriate participation. Some fight, some steal, some bully. Racial prejudice is evident among a significant number. Typical pre-teen behavior? No, this is more, and none of them learned this behavior overnight. Much of it could have been stopped well before they reached middle school. These kids do exactly what they know they can get away with, and that's a lot.
The state has released the school report cards for 2001-02. Clarke County's performance is not impressive. School choice is just a drop in the bucket.
Vicki Hirsch-White
Athens
IN VOGUE
Flagpole has sunk to a new low with the publication of the letters from Ms. Posner's 4th grade class [Letters, Mar. 5]. I thought that the letter to the editor page was a place for (somewhat) reasoned discourse concerning topics which are presented in the magazine. None of the 22 letters were addressed to the Flagpole, nor were any of them in direct response to something which had been written in the Flagpole. Why were they printed? Did any of these children ask that their letters be printed in the Flagpole? Had any of them even heard of the magazine before these were sent?
Ms. Posner's role in this should certainly be questioned. Were her students clamoring to express their opinions to the President so strongly that she had no choice but to send them to the White House, or was this a class project that she came up with on her own? If the latter is the case, what did she hope to achieve with such a project? Were these all the letters, or just a selection, and whose selection?
21 of the 22 letters all expressed essentially the same thing: War is bad and we shouldn't have one. Since the general public is divided roughly 50-50 on the subject of war with Iraq, and since most kids this age get a majority of their opinions from what their parents tell them, it would seem that they might have been coached on what to write, considering the overwhelming majority of the letters were on one side of the debate. One would think that the Flagpole, which upholds the idea that people should be allowed to think for themselves, would be suspicious of what seems, on the surface, to be an attempt to manipulate the thoughts of a group of children.
My daughter is in 5th grade, and she hasn't written anything so rambling and full of spelling and grammatical mistakes as most of these letters since she was in the 2nd grade. I understand that "creative spelling" is in vogue right now, but at some point students need to be shown how to write correctly or they will be at a disadvantage in middle and high school. If Ms. Posner would spend more classroom time teaching spelling and grammar and less time imposing her personal political positions, she might end up with the better world she wants, filled with people who can confidently and accurately express their own opinions.
The next time you want to make a statement, Ms. Posner, write your own letter. Don't get your students to write it for you.
Philip Weinrich
Bogart
Editor's note: Flagpole, like most other local and regional periodicals, welcomes letters on any subject.
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